The second international dance and song competition Art Premier has come to an end in Kyiv. The strict jury didn’t give the grand prize in the singing nomination to anyone, while the students of the choreography department of the Kyiv Children’s Art Academy received the first prize for choreography.
Children and youth from Ukraine, Russia, Abkhazia and even remote China danced and sang for three days. The singing contest was held in the Scientist’s House, while dancers competed in the Ukrainian Home. The singing and choreography contests had five categories (A, B, C, D and F). The oldest participants (F, adults aged 19-32) competed for two days in two rounds. Children and teenagers (A, B, C and D categories) vied in one round. On the first day the vocalists sang academic arias. On the second it was Ukrainian folk songs. The dancers performed classical, modern, pop and folk dances.
“The most important thing in the contest is that the children get involved in creative work,” the singing jury head, Ukrainian National Music Academy Associate Professor, and Shevchenko Prize winner Valerii Buimister told The Day. “We should be thankful for such enthusiasts as Svitlana Sukhomlynova (head of the charity foundation “Vivat Art,” which organized the “Art Premier” contest. – Author). This year about 100 vocalists participated in the contest. The oldest group (F) had 17 participants. We decided to allow all of them to sing in the second round in order to have the possibility to attentively listen to them once again, as some of them were very nervous during the first round and couldn’t prove themselves. We were pleased to listen to the participants from St. Petersburg, Moscow and a girl from China, Tsui Tsui, who studies at our Kyiv Music Academy. However, nobody was good enough to get the grand prize…”
Both academic and pop-singers competed in the singing category. The pop-singers were assessed by a jury headed by the Chancellor of the Kyiv Municipal Academy of the Vaudeville and Circus Arts, Professor Oleksandr Chukhinin:
“The pop-singers competition has revealed several bright individuals, but the jury didn’t give the grand prize to any of them. The singers from the Kyiv Leontovych School took the first place — they were the best. At present, we have a big problem with the pop-singing teachers. There are two or three of them in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Kherson. The repertoire is also a problem, especially for children. They mostly sing adult songs that are irrelevant for them. Today those who have their repertoire are in the saddle. Pop singing requires quite a lot of money. Parents have to invest a lot into audio records and costumes. For example, Mika Newton has the right to represent Ukraine at the Eurovision-2011, but she will do it at her own expense. Now she has to find the money for clothes, traveling, hotel, security and advertisement… It’s show-business. Today artists aren’t artists but ‘products’… I’m proud of Mika Newton. Professor Ivan Popovych taught her. She’s honest and hard-working. There were a lot of descent Eurovision pretenders. For example, Vania Berezovsky is a very gifted singer; Jamala is very bright as well, as is Zlata Ohnevych. However, the audience made their choice by voting…”
The director of the second “Art Premier” contest and member of the choreography jury Volodymyr Sobolev commented:
“The choreography contest was quite strong, especially the folk-pop dances, performed by the Kyiv Academy and the Ivano-Frankivsk School, who performed a Spanish dance. The grand prize was given to the Kyiv Children’s Arts Academy. It’s a good school. The Kyiv Art School No. 8 exhibited a good hand technique. The children performed variations from the ballets Don Quixote, Paquita and Corsair. The Kharkiv School didn’t come to the competition, as the local theater had changed the repertoire. So, we must be proud of our young dancers, who perform at the same level as the adults. They are sure to come in spring for ‘Art-premium’…”
The Cool Girls from the Bucha Levko Revutsky Art School (whose teacher is Olha Motoria) took the first place in the group singing nomination, A-category (the youngest participants, aged 7-8). The trio counts two Nastias and one Veronika. The girls have been singing together for three years. They have already taken part in the Song Vernisage, Merry Autumn Holidays, Maxi-Profi, Art Spring (where they took the first place) and Falling Stars competitions. The girls sing in Ukrainian and Russian. They have already started learning English so they can win over audiences not only in Ukraine but in Europe, too.
The thirteen-year-old Maria Hoi from Kyiv performed professional jazz and took the first place in the pop singing nomination, C-category. The girl has been singing since she was six. Her teacher is Natalia Ovsiannikova from the Vaudeville and Circus School; her first teacher was her father Andrii. The girl’s parents are professional musicians (they taught her to play the violin, the piano and sing). In 2006 Maria Hoi received the grand prize in her age category at the “Pontus Arena” in Sevastopol, where she sang a jazz potpourri for the first time (since then she’s been keen on jazz).
The Chinese Van Vei Chi came to Kyiv from a small town near Beijing. Now he’s a second-year student of the Ukrainian National Music Academy. He’s already participated in the Nezhdanova contest in Odesa. During the gala concert he sang the Chinese song “Like the Snow from Heaven,” which he also sang as a folk song in the first round of the competition. In the second round he sang Cavaradossi’s aria from the opera Tosca and the love song “Amid the Din of the Ball” by Tchaikovsky. The singer took the second place in the academic singing nomination.
